Course Description

Access to timely, complete, and accurate data is imperative to public health. It is the linchpin to informed public health action – be that during emergency response, advancing programs to promote health and well-being, understanding health equity within communities, and other activities.

Public health is at a critical point in its informatics journey. There is much focus on modernizing the data infrastructure within public health, advancing interoperability, embracing data standardization, and harnessing the power of partnerships. The success of these efforts will have long-lasting effects. It is an exciting time for those working in public health to participate in public health informatics either actively contributing to projects, providing their perspectives, or serving in a leadership role for informatics efforts.

This course provides students a survey of public health informatics through an overview of emerging areas of focus, information management techniques, and key information technology principles. The course enables students to apply the technologies and methodologies available to improve the use and management of information for problems solving and decision making. The course will cover a breadth of information including:

• Systems thinking methodology
• An overview of public health informatics systems
• Interoperability; data standards, with a particular focus on HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®); and data quality
• Software development life cycle
• The regulatory landscape for public health informatics
• Considerations for how health equity and social determinants of health apply to public health informatics

Learner Outcomes

• Develop a working vocabulary of public health informatics and information technology terminology generally applied around informatics solutions
• Identify types of informatics solutions within the public health domain
• Construct a visual of interested parties needed to advance a public health informatics challenge and prepare diagrams to visually depict operational and technology workflows
• Critique systems and systems development approaches, including considerations for supporting equitable public heath solutions
• Explain to others the basics of data standards, such as HL7 FHIR, code sets used in informatics, and certain standards advancement processes
• Synthesize the regulatory landscape for public health informatics and comment effectively in requests for information and during public commenting periods
• Collaborate and build a proposal for an informatics solution to address a public heath challenge
• Select ways in which they can get more involved in the public health informatics space that are aligned with their interests and career focus